Video-taped interview
G. PRICE: Mother (Edith Stanley Andrus Crane) was telling me years ago about when she played in the little string band, that they had formed at her church. And she played the violin, and she had a banjo too, but mostly the violin. And uh, my dad (Guy Gilman Crane), who wasn' t the least bit musical uh, missed taking her home from church. So, he bought himself a little banjo, and she taught him the few notes on it, chords, so he could be in the stringed instrument band, too. And uh, that's how they started really going together seriously. Well, he was an electrician at the time when the mines were just first being electrified, if that's the right word. Anyway, he had to go out of town quite a bit. And uh, he had been going steady with mother for almost a year, off and on, on his different trips, when he'd come back. And he was in Columbus, Ohio. And she was getting just a little bit tired of waiting for him; just to see him when he comes home between the jobs he was on. So, when he was in Columbus, I don't know if she wrote him a letter, or if someone in the little string band told him, wrote to him, and said that she was getting very interested in a young man that had been taking her home after the practices. And that was enough to inspire my dad to buy a ring and send it home to her, and said, "Now, we're engaged." So, they were married shortly after that. But uh, that's a little story mother that told about how she urged him to get married. She was very shy, of course. And he didn't know that she was playing a trick on him, but it did the business anyway. After that, that was in Columbus, Ohio, that was um, his last job. Then, they moved to, they were married, and moved to Shawnee for his next job in the mine, and uh, that was where my sister Gladys was born. And uh, about two years later, after he finished that job, he went to Congo, Ohio. That was a big mining place. I mean, it had a big mine, but it only had one street in it. There was a church at one end of the street and a saloon at the other. And the miners lived in little mining shacks on either side of the street. And uh, that was where I was born. And when that job was finished, he uh, had to go to Delaware, Ohio. And uh, while he was there my brother, Bud was born. And uh, shortly after that, he uh, he had to go way to Illinois, to Joliet, Illinois, where they had a big penitentiary. And uh, he, he and his crew were putting electricity in that great big prison. And that was where my brother was born, that didn't live. And uh, after that job was done, he was um, first, he was uh, sitting, well, it was kind of the water and electric department in Rockford, Illinois. And uh, we were there just a very short time when my sister Betty was born. And uh, that's where all of our birth places were. (Now you can turn it off.....)
G. HEINZ: Mom, would you tell a little bit about your own mother's life, before she became a Crane, when she was an Andrus?
